BIRDS (Niall Horan/ Keep Me Warm Sequel)

Chapter 14. Niall.

June 2016

I arrived home and left my suitcase on the floor. I looked around. Everything was still the same. It had been months since I was last here, and it felt weird. I was used to being on the road for months, surrounded by people, noise and screams. Then I'd come home and everything felt bizarre: the silence, the lack of people and the musty smell. I was alone, and I was a completely different person. Only a few people could see me inside those for walls, and they were the ones who didn't care about my money or my fame, I wasn't in the spotlight, and that made me happy. Don't get me wrong, I love the attention from the fans and the media, but at the end of the day, for me, it's more about the music and the fun I have on stage.

I loved going to pubs, having a couple of pints while watching football and just being myself. I loved not having to pretend I had this perfect life full of girls, money and parties. Beause no one's life was like that. I had met a girl though, her name was Francesca and she was a model. There wasn't anything serious going on, but we had been spending a couple of nights together and we were just starting to get to know each other. I liked that. There was no commitment, we were keeping it casual. We'd have sex, then we'd talk for a while and then one of us would leave. We actually talked a lot and she made me feel good about everything I was feeling and everything that was going on my life. I guess both of us needed someone to have fun with. Someone to escape with. 

It had been a few years since any of us had been commited to someone. I had been with Maddie, and for me she was more than just a fling from the beginning. But I guess age does something to do with it. What I was looking for when I was nineteen wasn't the same thing I am searching for now that I'm 22. I guess Maddie was different than Francesca, too. Maddie wanted, but rather needed someone to be with her at her worst, someone who appreciated her and told her he did. And I was willing to do that, because she was so worth it and I knew she deserved to know that. She was probably everything that Francesca wasn't. Francesca lived in the present, she didn't care about stuff that had no solution, and she was completely aware of how strong she was. She knew what she had to say in every situation, she knew how to keep everything simple. They were so different, and what I felt for one of them had nothing to do with how I felt about the other one. After Maddie, I was aware I needed someone like Francesca. I wanted to be careless, to have fun. That was it.

Francesca was in New York the day I arrived home, but I was going to go out for a few pints with the lads, and I was probably going get a little to drunk that night, to be honest. I hadn't been in London for ages and I wanted to make the most out of my time there. I went to the kitchen but found nothing on the fridge, so I sighed and went back to the living room. I had nothing to do, and sometimes that new house felt too big for myself. I left the old house because I didn't want to be reminded of Maddie once we broke up so when I saw this enourmous house I decided to buy it. I thought this house could fill the gap Maddie had left in me. It had only been six moths, that felt more of a roaller coaster than anything else. We had been on tour and my mood always depended on where we were, or what I thought I was feeling, and it might sound stupid, but seeing what Maddie or her friends would post on Instagram or Twitter had a lot to do with it. I didn't recognize myself. I still missed her sometimes, but I just learnt to live without her; and Francesca helped me moving on.

I finally decided to take a long shower and spent the whole afternoon playing FIFA until my friends, Darren and Steve, picked me up.

We went to a couple of bars until I convinced them to go to my favourite Irish pub in London. It was full of people, we managed to get to the barcounter. I ordered a pint and someone knocked on my shoulder. I turned around and saw a girl who told me about how she had met me two years ago in some kind of event which I couldn't even remember. I kept smiling and nodding until my eyes were directed toward the corner of the bar. The pint I had in my hand almost fell to the floor. It wasn't posible. Suddenly, our eyes met. I turned around to the barcounter and orderer another pint and took a huge sip. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I ordered another one. Our eyes met again. I ordered another one. I started to feel dizzy.